The Whole Assistant Spotlight - 3 Misguided Productivity Myths from Annie Croner

Jeremy · 0:00

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Annie · 1:33

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy · 1:49

Hey, friends, my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant, has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it. It's called The Leader Assistant Workbook. Now, you can buy the Kindle ebook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook. This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with. So, it's a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes. Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook.

Annie · 2:36

Today, we are talking all about three misguided productivity beliefs that you may have. These beliefs will hold you back if you let them. I like to consider these beliefs myths as a lot of us are unaware that we actually think these things. So, I just figured I would bring it into your consciousness, into your awareness today by naming them. But before I get there, I do want to start by laying the groundwork for this topic by sharing the productivity equation. So, the productivity equation is a concept that I've seen around, but I don't know that anybody is sharing it the same way that I am. So, the productivity equation goes like this. Productivity equals the amount of value created. So, in our role, this is the output or the end result or whatever project we're working on. So, the amount of value created divided by time. So, if the time piece is larger, then the amount produced is going to be smaller based on the value created. If you're able to create the same amount of value in less time, the amount of your productivity increases. The end result is increased productivity. So, we really want to look at strategies that are going to reduce the time part of the equation and produce the same or greater value than we initially thought possible, okay? So, for the sake of this conversation today, again, productivity equals the amount of value created divided by time. So, keeping this equation in mind, the first myth or the first misguided belief around productivity that we're going to talk about today is that productivity has a lot to do with how busy you are. The busier you are, the more productive you're being. That is not actually accurate or true. Busyness, meaning the state of doing things, which also is often accompanied with a state of anxiety or stress as an emotion behind the busyness, busyness does not equate to value. Really think about that. Busyness does not equal value. Busyness doesn't decrease the time you spend either creating the value. Just because you're busy doesn't mean that you're being super productive. Have you ever worked your butt off and at the end of the day, not been able to recall what actually got accomplished, not able to recall what you actually produced? That is an example of what I'm talking about here. We spend all of our time playing whack-a-mole, not showing up strategically for our time, not showing up strategically for our day. We spend our time in busy-ness, I'm using air quotes around busy-ness, not to actually produce anything, not to actually consider the value that was created throughout the day or the time it took us to create that value. So busy-ness does not have anything to do with productivity. Productivity is literally the amount accomplished, the output, the end result, the value created, divided by time. And the fact that you look busy, the fact that you are busy, the fact that you feel anxious and stressed out, does not actually mean that you are creating value and in a timely fashion. So I just want to bring some awareness to that. Productivity has nothing to do with how busy you are. Productivity only has to do with the amount of value created or the output or end result divided by the time, the least amount of time. So actually, productivity often looks less busy. It often looks more strategic. It often looks like taking the time to line out your processes and then executing on those processes in a really productive and time-constrained way, taking into account the amount of time to get that task done. So it often requires planning. It often requires you to show up more strategically for your time. So that you aren't staying over here in the busy-ness, but you are producing high-quality work and doing it in the most productive, time-effective way. Okay. The second kind of misguided productivity belief that we're going to talk about today is that productivity has everything to do with your effort and working hard. So here's the reality. Productivity has nothing to do with effort. You can work hard all you want and not produce anything. You can work hard all you want and do it in a less effective, less time-restrained way. Effort doesn't equal value created, and working hard doesn't actually mean you are creating value. I'm going to say that one again. Effort doesn't equal value created, and working hard doesn't actually mean you are creating value. The most productive people actually implement strategies that will require less effort and make their work easier and more streamlined. Some of you are overcomplexifying your work, and your productivity is suffering as a result. Your brains are trying to make things harder than they actually are, and so you aren't streamlining things in the most efficient and effective ways. So, pay attention. Are you putting a lot of effort into something? Are you working hard for something? What is the actual result of what you created? Do you feel like you are creating things in a time-efficient way? Or are you spinning your wheels most of the time? And have you implemented strategies that will require less effort and make your work easier? All good questions to ask yourself. The last and final misguided productivity belief that a lot of us have is that productivity has all to do with how many hours you work. I've worked 60 hours this week. I've been super productive. Have you, though? Have you? Many of you think that more hours equals increased productive output. Now, more hours may mean increased output, but they aren't productive hours because that timepiece, going back to the initial equation that we had, productivity is equal to the amount of value created over time, that timepiece is increased, which means that your total productive output, the productivity, the rate of productivity has decreased. My question to you is, how can you get the same amount of work done that took you 60 hours to do in 40 hours? Often, we wear our long hours, we wear the effort we put towards things, we wear how busy we are as badges of honor, and so we like to buy into the idea of being busy, we like to buy into the idea of efforting or working hard, we like to buy into the idea of working harder, longer hours, and we call it being super productive, but it's actually really not. Probably getting under people's skin right now. Now look, you may be operating at optimal productivity in terms of your time and your energy that you put towards it and really the value you're creating. And if you want to work longer hours, that's fine. If that's the job you have and you're fine with it, that's fine. My question to you is, how can you get the same amount of work done in fewer hours? Because working longer hours doesn't support the equation above for productivity. So I'm going to give an example of this. I think that many of us were raised going to school and I was for most of my formative years, but there was a time, I think, between fourth through sixth grade that I was homeschooled. And I would get my schooling done in two or three hours a day. And my cohorts, the people that were around my same age were going to school all day from like 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. And they were in school for hours on end. And I was able to get my schooling done in a shorter time frame. Right? Now, there's a reason for that. We didn't have set schedule in terms of class schedules. I was able to go at my own pace. And my own pace was a lot more efficient than the school's pace was. And the reality is that a lot of us have been raised to go from working at school from like 8 to 3 or 8 to 230 to a job and working 8 to 5. And we fill up the time based on the hours that are allotted for it. Instead of seeing how much we can get done in a shorter period of time, seeing how we can streamline things in a shorter period of time. So these are the things I want to bring your awareness to because productivity is simply the amount of value you create over time divided by time. So really, minimizing the time you spend on your tasks will increase your value proposition for your employer. It will increase your rate of productivity. And really streamlining your processes so that you can show up optimally, so that you can have the highest productivity rate is so much fun. So the question then becomes how do we actually increase the amount of value created? The first step is to think about how to work smarter, not harder. So I'm going to share a few things that will help you do this. Templatize, guys. Templatize everything. Templatizing is great. Create a template for those emails that you send out consistently. Create a template for requesting receipts for your executive. Create templates for your agendas and things like that. Create a template for your meeting with your executive, your one-on-one with your executive. Templatize, templatize, templatize. Another strategy to work smarter and not harder is to automate. Automate as much of the things as you can. That's why I really appreciate Trello for task management, because I can put things in my board automatically, and they're set to autodrop in my board at the same time every year, or the same time every day, or the same time every week. It just is automated, so I know I'm not going to forget things. Systematize, systematize, systematize as much as you possibly can. Batch similar tasks together so that it takes less time for your brain to switch from task to task. Gamify. I really like this one because this is so much fun. I would actually challenge myself when I was working as an executive assistant to get things done in a shorter time frame, and then I track my times. So say, for example, I'm working on expense reports, and it took me two hours to get expense reports done the previous time I did them, so this time I'm going to try and get it done, in an hour or an hour and a half. Gamify is so much fun, and it adds a bit of joy to your work too, especially if you're competitive by nature. And I wouldn't say that I'm competitive with other people, but I'm certainly competitive with myself. So gamification for me was a strong strategy in maximizing my productive output. So that's the first thing, work smarter, not harder. Stop recreating the wheel, guys. Stop it. Think about how you can create a system and then stick to that system. The second kind of strategy for increasing the amount of value created is to start trading value for money, not time. So many of us there again are used to the nine to five, that sort of thing. But if you're actually trading value for money and not time for money, that's a great way to increase the amount of value created. See if you can get more done in less time. How can you increase the value you bring to the table without increasing the time spent creating that value? The third strategy for increasing the amount of value created is to stop assuming that increased productivity equals increased time, effort and stress. A lot of us, we just like to be stressed. It's not that we like to be stressed. It's just that we're in the habit of being stressed. So we need to stop assuming that increased productivity equals increased time and effort and stress. Start questioning how you're doing things. This is my last strategy. Look at everything you do. Start to poke holes in the belief systems that I just laid out for you. Start to question yourself. Yes, okay, but if I were to be able to do this thing, if I were to be able to work less hours, what would that look like? Such a better question to ask. Also, poking holes in the effort. Do I need to effort more or is there a way that I can streamline everything? Start poking holes, just little tiny holes in those belief systems. You don't have to change overnight, but start questioning things. Just start questioning them. Be intentional, be whole. That is all for now. Please review on Apple Podcasts. Go bullos.com.

Jeremy · 16:19

Hey friends, my best-selling book, The Leader Assistant has a companion study and discussion guide to go along with it. It's called The Leader Assistant Workbook. Now you can buy the Kindle ebook version of The Leader Assistant Workbook on Amazon, or you can go to leaderassistantbook.com and get a printable PDF version of the workbook. This version has all the space and margin in between the questions that you can write your own answers and take notes with, so it's a great way to print it out and keep track of your discussion and study guide notes. Again, go to leaderassistantbook.com and click on Workbook to check out The Leader Assistant Workbook.